Development Info Tim Cain at Reboot Develop 2017 - Building a Better RPG: Seven Mistakes to Avoid

[FeelTheRads]

Furthermore, why is it automatically assumed that the rock-climber will be interested in even trying out your mountain?
So what, you need to build a road because those who prefer to drive will never even want to try to climb, but a climber is supposed to make compromises and drive instead of climbing?

Why are some people allowed to dismiss a game on difficult character creation but others are not allowed to dismiss it on "geometric shapes" character creation. Perhaps if I see such a character creation I won't even bother seeing what's next, just like those many people who will now enjoy the game didn't bother before.

And you can be sure that some of those that will go past your "easy more" character creation will then find the game difficult. And then you'll want to please those too, right?

So, the question is, where do you draw the line? Obviously you think it's important to bring more people in, but at what point the compromises you do will make other people leave? If my favorite band starts singing pop just to make more people listen I won't listen to it anymore. If my favorite bar puts up a playground to allow people with kids to come in I won't go there anymore. And so on.

 

[Lhynn]

MRY
Fuck builds, seriously. create systems that can be played more organically.

 

[Excidium II]

If you all want another D&D game, go out and make KotC a million seller. Doesn't at all have to be another 20 million Skyrim, just make it a million-er. Hell, if you got its numbers up to even half a mil, the industry would come sniffing around right quick, because they can smell when there's real money to be made.

How could it possibly sell that well when the developer won't put it on Steam? No game will ever sell a million copies if the only way to purchase it is off some Web 1.0 Geocities backwater site that belongs in the 90s. Old school CRPG gameplay is well and good, but your distribution platform should at least keep up with the times if you want to have any sort of credibility. Cleve had the right idea to take advantage of Steam's Greenlit while it still exists; KotC should do the same.

Way to miss his point. Excidium II proved the point Telengard was making and did it quite succinctly:

"KOTC was banal shit boring"

Telengard pointed out the hypocrisy of many Codexers, self-identified hardcore RPG nerds, who did not buy KotC. It was widely praised here and a number of Codexers did buy it - but if such a game can not even find commercial success among Codexers, then it has zero fucking chance among the mainstream regardless whether it's on Steam or not. Yet the same faggots make up fantastic conspiracy theories of SJWs controlling game studios or publishers, instead of admitting that they want AAA-graphics and voice acting and emotional engagement, as proven by the fact that they bought and played Bioware games. Somebody post that link of the Codex Steam group where everyone is playing Fallout 4.

wow who knew buying an streamlined OGL combat simulator is what separates the chaff from the wheat.

 

[Lhynn]

Regardless, KOTC is a great game with very good encounter design. Its not for everyone, but if it is for you, youll love it.

 

[l3loodAngel]

It's a creative way of claiming that attracting more casuals won't make RPGs any less complex. The last 15 years have debunked this claim rather thoroughly. People who need paved roads to get through the character creation in Fallout will need guided tours to get through the rest of the game, which would result in a very different design. See the Elder Scrolls evolution: Daggerfall -> Morrowind -> Oblivion -> Skyrim -> Fallout 4.

In other words, people who don't like rock climbing don't really care about mountains and if you build a road, the only crowd you're going to get is some tourists. You know that and we know that.

Agree, sort of. Im a fan of making games more complex as you progress through them. Sadly this isnt the case with games nowadays, they start simple and stay simple, because theres no reason to add stuff past the first hours because of reviews and the public perception of the game usually hinges on the first hours of the game in general, so all the depth that could be added is wasted.

But it can happen, it sort of did with FNV and its faction mechanics and final quests.

Um no? It gets exponentially simpler/easier after you obtain endgame weapons and armor in most games. I have yet to see an action RPG where difficulty and complexity increases in later stages.

 

[FeelTheRads]

wow who knew buying an streamlined OGL combat simulator is what separates the chaff from the wheat.

This from an Alpha Protolol lover lol

 

[Alienman]

Furthermore, why is it automatically assumed that the rock-climber will be interested in even trying out your mountain?
So what, you need to build a road because those who prefer to drive will never even want to try to climb, but a climber is supposed to make compromises and drive instead of climbing?

Why are some people allowed to dismiss a game on difficult character creation but others are not allowed to dismiss it on "geometric shapes" character creation. Perhaps if I see such a character creation I won't even bother seeing what's next, just like those many people who will now enjoy the game didn't bother before.

So, the question is, where do you draw the line? Obviously you think it's important to bring more people in, but at what point the compromises you do will make other people leave? If my favorite band starts singing pop just to make more people listen I won't listen to it anymore. If my favorite bar puts up a playground to allow people with kids to come in I won't go there anymore. And so on.

I guess there is far more dumb people than "smart" ones out there - aka potential customers. I don't see how understanding Fallout character system makes you smart though, as many pointed out they were in their teens when they played Fallout the first time, and some didn't even speak English well then, myself included. I find it funny that developers are finding people so stupid now that something a 12 year old understood back in the 90's is too complex for an adult now and might scare away people and the most pitiful of all... so called reviewers.

 

[Lhynn]

Um no? It gets exponentially simpler/easier after you obtain endgame weapons and armor in most games. I have yet to see an action RPG where difficulty and complexity increases in later stages.

This may not be obvious to you, but complexity =/= difficulty

 

[Excidium II]

wow who knew buying an streamlined OGL combat simulator is what separates the chaff from the wheat.

This from an Alpha Protolol lover lol

wow you got me good.

 

[Lhynn]

I love Alpha Protocol THIS much.

 

[FeelTheRads]

wow you got me good.

When you consider Alpha Protolol a good RPG or even a good game you lose the authority to make claims about the quality of other RPGs.

 

[l3loodAngel]

Um no? It gets exponentially simpler/easier after you obtain endgame weapons and armor in most games. I have yet to see an action RPG where difficulty and complexity increases in later stages.

This may not be obvious to you, but complexity =/= difficulty

Yeah I know that's why I wrote complexity/difficulty. But what do you expect additional stats in mid and late game?

 

[undecaf]

I find it funny that developers are finding people so stupid now that something a 12 year old understood back in the 90's is too complex for an adult now and might scare away people

Fast food generation. I don't think people are necessarily more or less stupid (well... some are), but they don't have an attention span to speak of anymore.

 

[Lhynn]

Um no? It gets exponentially simpler/easier after you obtain endgame weapons and armor in most games. I have yet to see an action RPG where difficulty and complexity increases in later stages.

This may not be obvious to you, but complexity =/= difficulty

Yeah I know that's why I wrote complexity/difficulty. But what do you expect additional stats in mid and late game?

Sure, or new systems, or add complexity to old mechanics.
jrpgs do it all the time, sometimes to ridiculous extents. The problem is western mostly, with reviewers and the general public forming their opinion within half an hour of playing the game, and developers doing fuck all to subvert expectations after that in every game released nowadays.

 

[belowmecoldhands]

I find it funny that developers are finding people so stupid now that something a 12 year old understood back in the 90's is too complex for an adult now and might scare away people

Fast food generation. I don't think people are necessarily more or less stupid (well... some are), but they don't have an attention span to speak of anymore.

It's not that they can't do it, but they don't enjoy it. That's what's being missed. Many of us here posting don't agree on things either. I like XYZ and other person dislikes. We're not more or less dumb than one other, we just have different tastes. Unfortunatelyk, we can't see past our own noses and the game designers don't give 2 ****'s about us and are just trying to make a living.

 

[Gylfi.Fenriz.Conquests]

i think it's a question of today's considering learning "curves", obstacles and everything "rough", so a mountain too, bad. you have to have all the enjoyment at once.

hey maybe a meteor will hit us soon, so we have a levelled earth.

 

[Alienman]

I find it funny that developers are finding people so stupid now that something a 12 year old understood back in the 90's is too complex for an adult now and might scare away people

Fast food generation. I don't think people are necessarily more or less stupid (well... some are), but they don't have an attention span to speak of anymore.

Could be, but then Dark Souls comes along...

I'm not saying it's the epitome of complexity. But compared to all other mainstream stuff. It has stats that actually effects stuff, non-linear or whatever you wanna call it story-telling and absolutely no hand-holding. And it does require patience to succeed. There is a market for complex stuff, but everyone is so set in this streamline way of thinking that nobody dares to try anything else than hoping that their latest session of streamlining of mechanics will bring in the unwashed masses to buy the game. It's disappointing.

 

[Lurker King]

I'm not sure that really gets at my problem, which is that I think the challenge of figuring out how to min-max a system at the outset isn't really the kind of strategy that narrative RPGs should be about.

Well, any cRPG should be governed by character building due to the very simple reason that your choices should be governed by skills and stats. It is true that we are not invested in character building in narrative games, but this is just because these narrative systems are in their very early stages. The only way to improve them is by developing engrossing systems governed by robust character building, not dismissing character building because is “not narrative stuff”.

It is a different question with rogue-likes and open-world games, perhaps, but I think in narrative RPGs it puts the solution before the puzzle. You aren't figuring out how to overcome some contextual obstacle, but just how to power-up your build. The choices are simply too abstract IMO, too metagamey.

Obviously, the point of a cRPG is not trying to achieve the supreme build, even if min-max is fun. I was just emphasizing that the fun you have in character build doesn’t end in character creation. I mentioned reloading to make different builds, but they affect many other things, e.g., the fact that you can’t explore certain paths with certain builds or the fact that each build has its own strengths and weakness. These seem like obvious things, but they add a lot in terms of immersion, world building, your enjoyment of moment-to-moment gameplay and your appreciation of the reactivity. On the other hand, if a developer has a dismissive attitude about character building, your choices will feel meaningless, the obstacles artificial and the fictional world gamey.

(Also, one small nit: I think you mean "reflective equilibrium," assuming you're talking about the Rawlsian idea.)

Yes! Thanks, I fixed.

 

[Chris Avelltwo]

wow you got me good.

When you consider Alpha Protolol a good RPG or even a good game you lose the authority to make claims about the quality of other RPGs.

Alpha Protocol is great in terms of the story and the branching paths. Other aspects could use improving, but the good outweighs the bad overall.

 

[Infinitron]

Why do people keep bringing up Dark Souls in a thread about grognardy character creation? Not all "hardcoreness" is the same. It's a different thing when you're getting hammered by a game while you're in control and able to dodge blows with your own skill, compared to going through trial-and-error spreadsheet character creation and trap build cycles until you find something that works in a tactical game.

nobody dares to try anything else

Nobody dares? What is this, 2010? Lurker King, get him!

 

[belowmecoldhands]

Why do people keep bringing up Dark Souls in a thread about grognardy character creation? Not all "hardcoreness" is the same. It's a different thing when you're getting hammered by a game while you're in control and able to dodge blows with your own skill, compared to going through trial-and-error loops of spreadsheet character creation and trap builds until you find something that works in a tactics game.

nobody dares to try anything else

Nobody dares? What is this, 2010? Lurker King, get him!

Some of us enjoy the trial-and-error and want to fail now and then. The joy is in trying to outguess the game system, you know to predict what'll work. If it doesn't matter what you do because the game system is so organic it'll shape itself to your choices then this segment of gamers won't be happy. So are these the gamers who theorycraft? I'm trying to figure out what 'theorycraft' means. I'm geussing it means figuring out a game? I assume that means enjoying comparing stats and strategies and so on, so you can play well. That's what drives me to play games. I'm driven by that mcuh more than story or narrative. Some peoiple are driven more by story/narrative. I disagree with that Lurker King. I don't think he/she is right assuming there's no division between the two. That's asking for trouble. Like not seeing a stop sign. All Lurker King needs to do to understand is grab a good book and read. You don't need to compare stats/skills and strategoes to win. You just need to read. For a player, it means giving them a world and a story to immerse in--smoothly without breaks. Not to beat. Not to "theorycraft," if I get its meaning right. The same thing happens when you watch a good movie. You're watching someone overcoming and cheering them on. When they finally overcome their struggles, the story reaches its climax. For us as players, we want more interaction, but to facilitate the narrative, not to beat or actually struggle ourselves.

 

[MRY]

Lurker King I think we're basically on the same page, but to me -- and this is almost certainly because I am a casual, at least relative to most Codexers -- I am not persuaded that huge swaths of character creations constitute "meaningful" choices at the time they're made. There are two ways to go for solutions, and I think we mostly part ways here. For me, it seems like character creation should be primarily about picking an archetype and then you refine the details of your character in response to concrete problems. Rather than trying to have distinctions between a 7 Charisma, 83 Diplomacy vs. 9 Charisma, 72 Diplomacy vs. 8 Charisma, 94 Diplomacy and Smoother Talker Perk, I think it is better to just say, "If a player wants to be a talker, embody that in the class." I think you can do similar things with fighting builds, though as you know I am not at an acceptable level of sophistication in fighting builds to have an intelligent opinion here. But I still think at the outset of the game, it is enough to ask the player what archetype he'd like: the Scholar, the Diplomat, the Brute, the Finesse Warrior, the Thief, the Sorcerer, or whatever. Then as you go, the gear your gather, the choices you make, the alliances you forge, etc. -- those are what become the variables that control your available options within that archetype.

Again, to me it is much more interesting to face a concrete choice that affects my persuasive options (e.g., do I alienate this faction and thereby diminish what I can get from them, and from others with their weight behind me?) rather than basing it on increments at the outset, which are not set in response to an objective between me and which there is an obstacle, but are instead based on trying to metagame the system. You and I both agree that RPGs are best when the systems and the narrative support each other, and I think don't think that fiddly character creation does that very well, except in the context of many, many playthroughs, which are unrealistic to expect in non-rogue-likes.

 

[Alienman]

Why do people keep bringing up Dark Souls in a thread about grognardy character creation? Not all "hardcoreness" is the same. It's a different thing when you're getting hammered by a game while you're in control and able to dodge blows with your own skill, compared to going through trial-and-error spreadsheet character creation and trap build cycles until you find something that works in a tactical game.

nobody dares to try anything else

Nobody dares? What is this, 2010? Lurker King, get him!

Well, it does have that "mountain" you see.

 

[Lurker King]

I guess there is far more dumb people than "smart" ones out there - aka potential customers. I don't see how understanding Fallout character system makes you smart though, as many pointed out they were in their teens when they played Fallout the first time, and some didn't even speak English well then, myself included. I find it funny that developers are finding people so stupid now that something a 12 year old understood back in the 90's is too complex for an adult now and might scare away people and the most pitiful of all... so called reviewers.

Well:

(1) Most players have the misguided assumption that cRPGs should involve zero thinking in character creation. Thank you, Diablo! It’s not that they are incapable of abstract thinking, but that they were told that cRPGs are mindless escapist entertainment. I know people that are smart, but watch movies and play games in their spare time that made me throw up.

(2) There has been a steep decline in education standards accompanied by a much more indulgent and protective attitude towards kids. Try telling a millennium I-find-everything-on-google-with-a-click that he should learn some things for himself, instead of being spoon-fed by the developer. He will throw tantrums about your unacceptable behavior.

However, that doesn’t explain why cRPG developers can’t tap certain audiences (e.g., chess players) or why they don’t try to stand out from action games, such as Skryim. They are always trying to steal the popamole audience and to mix with the horde. Instead, they should try to separate themselves from them, maybe even adopt a different label. There is a larger audience out there for the hardcore stuff. We just need to reach them because they are not playing cRPGs.

Fast food generation. I don't think people are necessarily more or less stupid (well... some are), but they don't have an attention span to speak of anymore.

So please explain to me why there is more than 600 million chess players worldwide.

 

[Infinitron]

I suspect TimCain might argue that Dark Souls is an example of a mountain with a road, albeit a steep and narrow one. (Witness the birth of a Codex meme)